


Soar

by Serie11



Series: Femslash February 2018 [18]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Machines, Nightmare mention, Nora Customs, Post-Canon, look I just love Aloy/Vala SO FREAKING MUCH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 10:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13762137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: Vala stares up at the giant bird machine in awe. “I still don’t understand how such a massive machine can get up into the air.”“Jet engines,” Aloy says sagely.





	Soar

 

The Jewel is beautiful in the height of summer.

Sure, the heat is oppressive, but Aloy is wearing the Carja armour she got while in the Cut, and it’s light and lets her shed some heat. She’s a lot more worried about Vala, who is still running around in her heavy Nora armour. Even though they haven’t been back to the Sacred Lands in almost three months, Vala refuses to change out of it.

Aloy follows Vala through the jungle, the thick trees obscuring their vision. She taps her focus for a second, but there’s no shining outlines of machines anywhere nearby, so Aloy taps it again, content to let Vala have the lead.

They slowly make their way north, and as the trees start to thin, Aloy can see the mesas that the Spire and Meridian are built on.

“Up?” Vala asks.

Aloy comes to stand beside her. “You’re the one who’s been having all this nervous energy today. If you want to go and see the Spire, then we can.”

“Okay,” Vala says, smiling softly at Aloy.

The path has been mostly repaired after the damage it took during the final battle, so they don’t even have to hop across dangerous spires of rock or climb any cliff faces. The stairs make Aloy’s thighs burn, but that’s nothing new. She’s used to the wilderness, to climbing hills and sliding down mountains. Stairs are a very man made thing.

Vala goes to the east lookout when they get to the top, and Aloy meanders around the area for a few minutes. There’s no one here, but the remnants of HADES still occupy a place at the bottom of the Spire. It makes her stomach churn. She should talk to Avad about getting it removed, and put somewhere that she won’t have to see it.

The rest of the buildings are mostly still demolished. The Carja still worship the Spire, but the grounds around it have taken on a more negative tone. Aloy can’t find it in herself to blame them. She can still see the heavy gouges in the ground where the deathbringer fought. In the back of her mind, she can still hear the explosions and the screams and Vala’s voice shouting out commands and Varl’s determined face, and –

She takes a breath. Reliving these things isn’t helping anyone. She and Vala have talked about this, in the quiet nights where one of them wakes up gasping. Nightmares aren’t exactly great, but Aloy can deal with them as long as Vala is by her side.

She makes her way over to her girlfriend, who is still staring east.

“What did you want to come up here to see?” Aloy asks.

Vala is quiet for a few seconds. “You can see the Metal Devil that’s on top of All Mother Mountain from here.”

Aloy squints. It’s a clear day, and if she looks south east, there is definitely a clear silhouette of a Horus – a metal devil.

“Huh. I’ve never noticed it before.”

“While we were waiting here for the attack on Meridian, we spent a lot of time up here. We were training, and keeping an eye out, definitely, but we needed breaks, you know. So me and Varl would come up here and point out things that were really far away, and we’d make up stories about them.” Vala stops talking, but Aloy doesn’t say anything. She feels like this is something that Vala needs to say, all in one go. “We saw that on a day like today. It was clear and we looked into the distance, and there it was. A reminder of how far home was.” She huffs out a laugh. “Although it was also a reminder of how close it is. I mean, we can see it! So our home was close to the danger of the invasion. It made us both more determined to fight.”

Aloy puts her arm around Vala’s shoulders. “Is this what you’ve been thinking about these last few days? You’ve been quiet.”

Vala hums. “Kind of.” She looks at Aloy out of the corner of her eye. “Do you know that it’s the Proving tomorrow?”

Aloy stares at her. “Really?” Had it really been a year since everything had started? A year ago, had she still been an outcast?

Vala nods. “Yeah. It’s weird, not being there. I remember all the celebrations, the night before the Proving. Everyone is probably in Mother’s Heart right now, sitting around the fires, listening to the stories told by the matriarchs. And I’m out here.” She bites her lip.

Aloy shifts her weight. She knows that sometimes Vala feels odd being outside of the Sacred Lands, but she also knows that Vala would have never been content to stay there for her whole life. “Homesick?”

“Not really,” Vala says shiftily. “It’s just that…”

“What?”

Vala sighs. “Well you wouldn’t know about this, because you weren’t in Mother’s Heart for long enough, but usually the braves who pass the Proving from the previous year act as a sort of honour guard for the contestants. But I suppose it’ll be an actual guard this year, even though only Gira and Fiara made it out, besides you and me. It’s another rite of passage for young braves. I’m just kind of sad that I’m missing it.”

“Well why didn’t you say?” Aloy asks, aghast. “We could have gone back for the Proving!”

Vala looks at her with an eyebrow raised. “I know that you don’t like spending that much time in Nora lands.”

“I like seeing you happy,” Aloy says, crossing her arms. “I like that a whole bunch. I could have put up with everyone for a few days while the Proving was going on. I don’t exactly like to think about what happened at our Proving. It would have made me feel better if we could have guarded the new braves.”

“Oh,” Vala says, surprised. “That wasn’t how I thought you would feel.”

Aloy leans into her. “Well, maybe next time ask instead of assuming.”

Vala sighs. “Okay. I will. Too bad it’s too late to get there, now…”

Aloy looks out at the horizon again, towards the twining limbs of the Horus. It really was too far away to travel in one day, especially since the celebrations were happening now. Travelling to the Embrace from Meridian usually took ten days. She’s done it faster, though. Aloy can still remember the breathless, anxious flight from Sunfall to the Embrace after escaping from Helis. Then, she had travelled from Sunfall to the Embrace in eight days. It had been the eight longest days of her life, not knowing if she was too late or not, and if she would find Vala still alive at the end of her journey.

If they could go over the mountains instead of around them, that would cut a big chunk off their travelling time. But they were far too high and far too steep to climb. Aloy sighs. Maybe next year, they could…

But no. Vala had said that it was the previous year’s braves who were the honour guard. That meant that Aloy has to get them to Mother’s Heart in under twenty hours, when it normally takes ten days.

She stares at the Horus that’s barely visible. The summer sun beats down on both girls. There’s not even a breeze to lift some of the stifling heat. The only thing moving over the Jewel are stormbirds, as they trace their set path through the air.

Stormbirds…

Aloy finds herself staring at one. She knows that there are several stormbirds scattered around the skies of the Jewel, and one not too far from where they currently were, and southwards – the direction that they needed to go anyway.

“Hey Vala,” Aloy says slowly. “I think I can get us to Nora lands before tomorrow.”

Vala startles beside her. “Huh? How?”

Aloy is still staring at the stormbird. Vala looks where she’s looking, and her eyebrows shot up.

“No way. That’s not happening, Aloy.”

“But it could,” Aloy said, because she’s always been solution orientated. She would have to down the stormbird without damaging it. Luckily, she had her ropecaster, and she’d gone back to cauldron zeta and obtained the override codes again, after the final battle. Technically, it’s possible. Aloy just hasn’t considered it before, because well. It’s kind of crazy. But she would do kind of and even flat out crazy things to make Vala happy, so really, it’s a no brainer.

Aloy is going to override the stormbird and then make it fly them to the Embrace.

“You really are crazy,” Vala says wondrously. Aloy elbows her.

“Yeah, yeah. Look, come on, we should go.”

Aloy starts down the path that would lead them to the bottom of the mesa. Like normal, there are a small herd of striders just outside the Meridian Village gates, and Aloy shoots shock arrows into two of them. She overrides the first and then shocks the second one again, keeping it down for long enough for her override to recharge.

“I can’t believe you’re even entertaining this idea,” Vala says as she mounts her strider. Aloy shoots a grin at her.

“Let’s sprint through the Jewel,” Aloy said, pulling up her map and placing a marker on the stormbird site. “I don’t want to waste any time fighting something. Follow me, and try to keep up!”

Vala snorts a laugh as Aloy urges her strider into a gallop and sets off down the path that leads into the jungle.

They smash through stalker sites, charger sites, avoid a few snapmaws and scrappers. Vala is whooping behind her, and Aloy’s blood sings in her veins. Sneaking around is all well and good, but charging through an area and laughing while doing so as enemies startle around? _That’s_ good fun, and something that Aloy will always associate with Vala. They’ve done it enough times that the two ideas are intrinsically linked.

They come to the open area where the stormbird is, and Aloy dismounts. Vala follows her on foot as they make their way out into the open.

“I’ll tie it up,” Aloy says determinedly. “You get its attention so I can aim in peace. Then I’ll run in to override it.”

“Okay,” Vala says. She’s grinning, and pulls Aloy forward just before they step into the stormbird’s range. Aloy bites at her lips and Vala licks into her mouth. Aloy can hear both their heartbeats racing, from the gallop here, from the kiss, from the adrenaline of the future fight.

“Cover my back!” Vala yells, breaking away. She sprints, whooping, into the stormbird’s patrol route. Aloy loads her first shot as the stormbird makes a startled sound above them, and then a warning call.

“Come on, come on,” Aloy mutters as she walks after Vala, trying to be inconspicuous. The stormbird is just out of the reach of her ropecaster.

It dives down and lands with a ground shaking _thud._ Aloy quickly aims and shoots the first rope into it, causing the stormbird to roar out its displeasure and turn to face Aloy. Vala ducks around to its other side, calling loudly as Aloy reloads. She fires another shot as the stormbird turns to look at Vala, and then another one before it can start to walk towards her. The stormbird screeches in a way that lets Aloy know that it’s about to let out a pulse of electricity.

“Get away!” she yells at Vala, but Vala had recognised it too, and is sprinting away as fast as she can. Aloy grits her teeth and shoots another rope at the stormbird as it releases electricity, the wave dissipating before it can reach Aloy.

Tied up, the stormbird totters on its feet for a few seconds before falling to the ground. Running over, Aloy almost pulls out her blast sling on instinct before reaching for her spear instead. She plunges the spear into the neck of the stormbird, watching carefully as everything begins to sync and she uploads the override code into the stormbird’s system.

Vala is standing watch beside her, bow out with a fire arrow ready, Vala’s favourite ammo. Aloy holds her breath until the upload finishes, and the ropes fall off the stormbird as it sits up and shakes its head.

“All good?” Vala asks breathlessly.

“Yep,” Aloy says. She pats the stormbirds side. “Looks like she’s ready to go.”

“Somehow,” Vala says, staring up at the giant bird machine in awe. “I still don’t understand how such a massive machine can get into the air.”

“Jet engines,” Aloy says sagely.

Vala giggles. “Okay, okay. So, machine whisperer, how are we meant to fly on this thing?”

Aloy hadn’t gotten that far into her plans yet. “Well,” she starts. “We’ll need to be on its back. So I’ll climb up and see if there’s any good places to sit.”

There are, as it turns out, very few good places to sit. Aloy finds the best one just behind the storm bird’s neck. She can fit her legs around its neck to hang on, although she uses a few spare pieces of wire as a loop that she can secure both of them to the stormbird. With the improvised harness in place, Aloy invites Vala up to the stormbird’s back.

Vala grabs her hand and Aloy pulls her up.

“So, we just hold onto the wire?” Vala asks dubiously.

“No,” Aloy says. “Look, I’ve put extra loops in it. That way, we can attach it to wire around our bodies, so we don’t even need to hang on.” Excited, Aloy finishes her own belt and clips herself to the stormbird, showing Vala.

Vala shakes her head. “You’re crazy, but okay. Give me that.”

With a bit of fussing, the two of them manage to secure themselves solidly. Aloy waves her hands around. “See, we don’t need to hand on now!”

Vala laughs. “Only you would think that was a need in this situation. Trust me, I’m going to be hanging on real tight.”

“To me?” Aloy teases.

“I might as well,” Vala mumbles. She’s sitting behind Aloy, and Aloy takes comfort in her arms as they wrap around her waist. Vala buries her head in Aloy’s neck. “Now you just need to tell it where to go.”

The hard part. Aloy puzzles over it for a few minutes while Vala tries not to laugh at her.

“After all this trouble, and you can’t make it fly,” she snorts. Aloy huffs.

“I can make it fly,” she insists, even though she’s still not sure how she’s going to do that. Finally, she pulls open her map and marks a spot that she knows is an open field not far from Mother’s Heart. Pausing, she realises there’s an extra option in her menu. Slowly, she presses the button that says ‘Depart.’

Underneath her, the stormbird whirs to life. “Whoa!” Vala calls out, her arms tightening around Aloy. Aloy thinks that they should do this more often, if she gets to have Vala’s arms around her like that. It’s very distracting. The stormbird extends its wings, and then flaps them down, hard.

Aloy screams as they shoot into the air. She’s seen stormbirds launch before, and it’s always extremely fast, but that in no way prepared her for being on the back of one. The world moves up and down as the stormbird gains height, and it makes Aloy dizzy to see how fast the ground is falling away.

The level out in probably under a minute, but feels a lot longer than that. She opens her eyes very slowly, and then looks around. Her jaw drops as she realises that they’re above Meridian now – on level with the Spire!

“Holy shit,” Vala says. Aloy has one hand clenched tight around the wire securing them and one gripping Vala’s wrist. The stormbird lets out a low squawk, and then turns south.

Behind her, Vala starts to laugh. Aloy doesn’t know whether to do the same or not. With the Jewel spread out beneath them like green grass instead of trees, she doesn’t know how to feel.

“Now, _this_ is a way to travel!” Vala yells over the wind. Aloy laughs, because she can’t disagree. Already, the mountains are growing bigger.

“The Nora are in for a surprise!” Aloy shouts back.

Vala laughs harder, and Aloy joins her as they soar towards their homeland.

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is one of my fav fics of this month tbh. The prompt for this fic was: hitchhiking. No cars in the HZD verse, so I had to improvise XD


End file.
